Former President Václav Klaus and his institute do not expect any significant change from the upcoming parliamentary elections. However, Klaus would like the elections to help awaken the public to a number of important challenges facing Czech society.
The former president shared his opinion on upcoming elections to reporters during Thursday’s presentation of the book entitled “Elections 2021 – Will They Be About Anything?” which he co-wrote with his colleagues from the Václav Klaus Institute.
According to Klaus, the institute has decided to comment on the elections even though its representatives will not run in them. In the book, they express concern that the forthcoming parliamentary elections will not be about significant matters. Klaus refused the “trivialization of the elections” through slogans such as “anti-Babiš” or inciting fear of Russia and China. He considers these topics to be “insincere”.
The former president told reporters that the Czech Republic is at a significant historical crossroads. He blamed political parties for not seeing it and for deliberately avoiding essential issues. According to Klaus, the members of the institute are worried that the Western world is changing qualitatively, and they do not want to just stand by watching it.
The new book on elections consists of five contributions written by Klaus and his colleagues. In the preface, Klaus, together with the president’s office former chancellor Jiří Weigl, states that Czechia faces a fundamental threat to its existence, sovereignty, and future prosperity. They fear that the Czech Republic will become the object of a “gigantic leftist social experiment.” In the text, they speak out against the Pirate Party and two opposition coalitions but further note that “for a real democrat and free man,” the actions of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his potential allies are also not satisfactory. However, the authors are more forgiving towards him.
In his contribution, Klaus reiterates that since his son left the Tricolor movement’s leadership, he has no one to vote for. He states that he is unable to identify with any party that is currently operating in Czech politics. Klaus expects a lot from Civic Democrats (ODS) but is currently disheartened by their performance. He sees glimpses of rational attitude in the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the Free Citizens’ Party (Svobodní) while finding conceptually correct foundations in the Tricolor.
Klaus considers the “ideology of progressivism and globalism,” the search for a rational state policy towards the coronavirus epidemic, or the consequences of “huge state debts” to be key issues that will apparently not be addressed in the elections. He also identified “aggressive genderism,” integration in the EU, and “false green ideology” as important topics. He would also like to see the “deliberalization of the Western part of the world” addressed.
Title image: Vaclav Klaus, A former Czech prime minister and president, speaks at a conference inaugurating a conservative new university in Warsaw, Poland, Friday, May 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
